U214A

Introduction

Current standard English has been through many stages of change throughout times and ages as it developed to be as it is today. Researchers, lexicographers, linguists and grammarians have shared a lot in this development movement. Till the fourteenth century, it was not preferred by the Great Empire to use English as an official language to use by upper classes.  French and Latin were better as high languages and lower classes used English. Yet this changed since the fifteenth century to reach top changes in the seventeenth century. English codification history is going to be discussed in this assignment including dictionaries' use, including words in dictionaries and prescriptive and descriptive dictionaries.  

 Body

Since centuries pasted, English was not in the same position as it is today as processes of standardizations and codifications of the language have left their effects on it in many linguistic aspects. Latin and French have left their effect on English to make it a hybrid one by taking some words and rules of the two languages. King Henry IV was the first English speaking king to rule England in 1399 but this did not make English as the official used language till there was a standard version of it after centuries as English importance became clear to authors and there was an urgent need for having a unique language for all people. Printing was presented by William Caxton in England which aroused the speech about the importance of having English standardized. Virgil's Aenoid English translated version by Caxton also aroused such speech in 1490. The London variant of the language was used by Caxton which limited the use of his book at that time. The London variant of English was used by the government as in official writings in the fourteenth century end in documents of the Chancery of Westminster by the clerks then which made its use to prevail all over England and became spreading for writing. (Arab Open University, English in the World, Unit2) Elaboration of function is a stage that followed this as northern dialects were not favored to be used by writers who used to encourage other writers to use English variant which is a standard one. English standardization encountered its first stages that were elaborated after deciding that Chancery was the variety of English which was best in the seventeenth century beginnings.  After this stage, it was time for language codification which was meant to process the language and limit variations of language by making a basis of rules and words of English which were acceptable as this occurred by writing the dictionaries and important books written in English between the seventeenth century and the nineteenth century period. (Hickey, 2012)

There was a great interest in writing dictionaries because they were important for many reasons. The urgent need for dictionaries was a social demand so as to have a language variety which is socially accepted and a political demand also for having one unique version of the English language to be used widely by limiting varieties use so as to produce a variety that is an only representative of England as the British Empire was widened a lot in the eighteenth century with a very energetic trade movement with different areas of the world. Having one standardized variant of English was a social demand due to the high classes of the London society and the ruling classes effects were clear in the lexicographers' attitudes in stating one version which was highly prestigious for being used by writers and educators. Thus, the need for having grammar books appeared so as for teaching purposes so as to let all people learn the standard English. According to what happened of setting rules of the English language, grammarians' role was minimized as this was the time of adopting such rules practically.  This was the time that witnessed political changes as for example, Great Britain included Scotland as a part of it in 1707 which made it important to have dictionaries with all English words recorded and to have all the language varieties within and this also meant to have one variant version of the language to express the nation as a whole to refer to its unity. Spelling and pronunciation were also detected to be recorded within dictionaries correctly.( Grobman, 2014) Samuel Johnson had his dictionary which was prepared according to the London variant as he chose words spelling according to it, he meant to make a safe record of the language so as not to be changed or affected with outer effects. He prescribed some specific words so as to be acceptable and other words to be barbarous which reflects the social effect on language standardization. This dictionary was very respectable and considered one of the basic references to the English language. . (Arab Open University, English in the World, Unit2) 

The first dictionary to be considered as monolingual was the Table Alphabetical dictionary for Cawdrey in 1604 but at the same time the dictionary of Samuel was preferable to it and better than it due to its being made carefully by Johnson and as he made it as a basis for inclusion of words that lasted for more than one hundred and fifty years as a linguistic reference. He was very keen on keeping the right spelling of words to fix language basics by keeping its lexicon besides his technique of noting about each word uses and its classification to be acceptable or not. Johnson was interested in including both hard words and simple words to have all used English words in his dictionary and this was a beginning for compiling dictionaries rules that lasted till our current times. Johnson was the first to set rules of inclusion for English words which was and still is a criteria for making good dictionaries. Users of a dictionary always look for words' meanings according to their researches' purposes as for example those who work in commerce look for terms related to commercial life and it is better for them to look up words in specialized dictionaries. Traditional criteria of complying words depends on printing and written work on adding new words but today's criteria differs as there are new words that join the language daily and are widely used by English speakers all over the world such as "blogging" which means to write in a blog, "buzzing" which means to alert someone or take interest by new things or "App" which means applications of software. Attestation is a new factor of the modern inclusion of words which means proving a word validity by evidences such as specifying a time for the word to be trusted as one year or more of being used. (Lynch, 2002)

There is a question which was usually asked by linguists which is:" Should dictionaries be prescriptive or descriptive?"  Some linguists see that the prescriptive approach is better as it enable them to prescribe the language main rules that keep the structure of a language, its lexicon and semantics. Others prefer the descriptive approach which provides a description of the language and how it could be used. Prescriptivism supports the validity of a unique language variety rather than all other varieties of the language. It also provides a chance of having a model that asserts accuracy and basics of the traditional language while descriptivism is more flexible in accepting the different acceptable language verities as long as they are preferred by the language users. The prescriptive approach which is a traditional one is well represented by the dictionary of Samuel Johnson as it provides its users with techniques of words usage correctly and to keep a record of the formal words of English which do not belong to slangs or language that is locally used. This supports students of the English language and the writers who seek formal use of the language. The descriptive approach can be applied by the descriptive dictionaries where words are defined and described through the ways they are used but they do not advise their users regarding how to use words. The current dictionaries of today differ in their approaches but most of them follow the descriptive approach giving their users the available descriptions and definitions of words but without a big emphasis or advice on usage. (Hitchings, 2005)

 Conclusion

Standardization and modification of the English language have encountered many stages and this was throughout times and over different ages which left their effects on the language variants to reach the current English we know today. Many linguists and grammarians added too much to the language processing and among them there was Samuel Johnson who was well recognized and still is one of the basic representatives of the formal English language that was preferred by the prestigious classes and by the ruling class then. His dictionary was a significant reference for English users, writers and educators with its classification of words and the criteria used in it by Johnson for words inclusion and techniques of compilation followed that saved the basics of the language and benefited many researchers and lexicographers.